Business of Media
Cartoonist Michael Leunig lashes ‘futile’ boycott by his colleagues of this year’s Walkley Awards
One of the nation’s top veteran cartoonists, Michael Leunig, has described the boycott of this year’s Walkley Awards by his colleagues as “futile and in vain” and urged them instead to voice their views through their artwork, reports The Australian’s Sophie Elsworth.
Many of the nation’s cartoonists have joined together in protest because of the award’s sponsorship deal with petroleum company Ampol and also “racist” comments made by the event’s founder, Sir William Walkley in a Sydney Morning Herald newspaper column written 62 years ago.
Leunig, who has worked for Nine Entertainment’s Age newspaper for more than 50 years, labelled the cartoonists who have boycotted the event as “tame” and described it as “activist conformity”.
EU unveils ‘revolutionary’ laws to curb big tech firms’ power
The EU has unveiled a set of “revolutionary” laws to curb the power of six big tech companies, including allowing consumers to decide what apps they want on their phone and to delete pre-loaded software such as Google or Apple’s maps apps, reports The Guardian’s Lisa O’Carroll.
The package of laws will also pave the way for more competition in some of the areas most closely guarded by the tech firms, including Apple Wallet and Google Pay.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA), the second big package of EU laws to hit tech firms in two months, defines a series of obligations that gatekeepers need to comply with, including not engaging in anti-competitive practices.
Comcast, Disney move up start of Hulu negotiations
Comcast and Disney have agreed to move up the date on which they begin negotiating the fate of their jointly-owned streaming service, Hulu, the cable company’s CEO said Wednesday, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Toonkel.
The companies plan to begin work negotiating a potential sale of Comcast’s minority stake in Hulu on Sept. 30, months earlier than their initial January start date. Hulu, home to shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale and The Bear, is likely worth more than $30 billion, Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts said.
The negotiations between Disney and Comcast come as entertainment companies struggle to make their services profitable and determine what consumers are willing to pay. At the same time, linear TV channels are losing subscribers rapidly, putting more pressure on companies to turn a profit on streaming.
Warner Music CEO says services need to be “Taking a page out of Netflix’s playbook”
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl on Wednesday emphasized the need for music streaming services and their partners to not just “hunt” for subscribers but also “harvest” sub relationships, for example by driving revenue per average user in more mature markets higher. To do so, he told an investor conference that music streaming players should take a playbook from the Netflix playbook, reports The Hollywood Reporter’s Georg Szalai.
“Focusing on revenue per user is a very, very important part of what the industry needs to do,” the former YouTube and Netflix top executive said in an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco, which was webcast.
“Taking a page out of Netflix’s playbook is a smart thing for all of us to do. You’ve seen price innovation from $20 to $22 to $20, $19, $18, $17, all the way down to $8, then back to $9, $10. And then from $10 to $7, $15 and $20. So the amount of work and innovation that happens around price optimization at Netflix is incredible. And I think we all have a lot to learn from that and we should adopt it.”
Television
Coffs Harbour studios hopes for 2024 construction
Two years ago a major film and post-production studio was proposed for Coffs Harbour. Pacific Bay Resort Studios & Village was jointly announced by Russell Crowe, Pacific Bay resort owner Peter Montgomery and producer Keith Rodger (The Water Diviner), reports TV Tonight.
According to Gurmesh Singh, the Member for Coffs Harbour, the project is currently in discussion with Transport for NSW around a Pacific Highway Upgrade which sees a bypass situated at the rear of the resort, and adjacent to the location for the planned sound stages.
“They’re still in the planning phase,” he told TV Tonight.
Sex scandal shakes Lego Masters’ foundations
Nine’s hit TV show Lego Masters has been rocked by a sexual harassment scandal, after one of its senior producers was accused of touching a junior staff member in a sexual manner, repeatedly inviting her up to his hotel room and showing her a video of him simulating sex with a box of cask wine, reports The Australian’s Ellie Dudley.
Rebecca Smith is suing production company Endemol Shine, which also produces The Bachelor, Masterchef and Survivor, and associate producer Dave Holder for $150,000, claiming she was denied a safe workplace and treated unfavourably because she was a woman.
Smith, who worked as a Lego sorter on three seasons of the highly rated show, has accused Holder in court documents of being a proud philanderer, who bragged about his sexual relationships with her fellow “sorters” and leveraged his senior position to make her and her colleagues feel indebted to him for their employment.
Tracy Grimshaw to return to TV with secret new project
Tracy Grimshaw will return to TV screens next year for a secret “new project”, reports News Corp’s Lexie Cartwright.
The return of the veteran Australian broadcaster, who stepped down as A Current Affair host in November, was among the announcements at Channel Nine’s ‘Upfronts’ on Wednesday afternoon, with the network unveiling its programming highlights for the rest of the year and into 2024.
Details about Grimshaw’s role were vague, with a network spokesperson saying: “In a new project with details to come, Tracy Grimshaw returns to Channel Nine in 2024.”